


One-Stop Alpha Cuddle-Shop

by The_thing_about_endings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 5 Times, Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, If You Squint - Freeform, Pack Feels, Possibly Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-10-24
Packaged: 2017-12-30 08:33:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1016420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_thing_about_endings/pseuds/The_thing_about_endings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life with the pack involves a whole lot more Disney marathons than Stiles might have expected, and a lot more smiling.<br/>Cuddling, too. Like whoa, lots of cuddling!<br/>Or:<br/>Four times Derek was a champion hugger, plus one time he was hugged.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One-Stop Alpha Cuddle-Shop

**Author's Note:**

> One very non-graphic reference to CP, see end for more if you think it might affect you.  
> The rest of it is basically just lots and lots of the pack being cuddled... Sorry about that.

The first one starts like this: with Stiles waking up. 

He just lays there in the darkness for a while, staring at the ceiling of his room in the Hale house and piecing together flashes of a dream - something involving a creature with eerily long twiggy fingers, and a porcelain teacup with dreadlocks. Nonsense, really. He just hopes it's not portentous nonsense. 

He still feels vaguely uncomfortable, and wonders if it might be this heat that clings to everything like gladwrap, a cloying, hazy film that leaves Stiles sweaty and the wolves stroppy. Everyone seems to get more nightmares in this weather, leaving them on-edge and inclined to be snappy and sarcastic, their wrestling taking on a fiercer, copper-tinged edge before Derek breaks them up with a snarl. 

Normally there's a lot of people in the Hale house, drawn by something none of them can name, filling the rooms with the ring of their laughter and arguments in vaguely equal proportions, though the fighting is winning at the moment. It's easier now they're all a little older and don't have parents wanting to know their every move - they can come and go as they like from their own apartments. More often than not they end up here, and Stiles perhaps more than the others. It saves Derek having to clamber through his window whenever he wants something googled, technophobe that he is, and someone has to cook for everyone, after all. So many twists of fate have left Stiles the only decent chef out of the lot of them that it’s not even funny, but them’s the breaks. He doesn't really mind. 

It's nice, Stiles thinks, it feels like being part of one huge family, where everyone is important and needed and cared for. That's pack, he guesses.  
But tonight there's just the two of them: Derek, the unmovable point around which the rest of them converge and spread and converge again, and Stiles, the eternal hanger-on. 

Stiles wonders where this uneasiness is coming from, all of a sudden, and if he has the energy for fighting off any kind of evil tonight. He groans, and tries to work up the momentum needed to climb out of bed, but lays there for another few long moments.  
Eventually Stiles groans again, kicks at his sweaty sheets to dislodge the tangle pinning his legs together, and scrambles free, tipping himself almost off the bed. He slides his legs a little more carefully over the side, padding out of the room and towards the kitchen for some water. 

The kitchen light’s on already, which is a little strange at this time of night, splaying a patch of brightness out onto the dark panelling of the hallway. Stiles stumbles inside, hand held over his eyes while he adjusts to the glare from the bulb, pausing on the threshold until he can see again. He blinks, twice, and then a third time, just for good measure, because Isaac, he the sweet and precious, is standing slumped in the middle of the kitchen.  
Well, standing is perhaps a little rich. He’s more sort of draped in the middle of the kitchen, against someone’s shoulder. This in itself doesn’t merit a third blink, of course, because everyone wants Isaac near them and draped over them and nuzzling into them. He’s Isaac. See above: sweet and precious. While Stiles had thought he'd be at home with Scott and Alison, his being here isn't too blink-worthy in itself.  
No, what’s surprising to Stiles is, well...

‘Derek?’ he mouths, and though he hasn’t made any kind of noise as far as he’s aware, the alpha’s eyes snap to him over Isaac’s curly head.  
‘Shut up’, Derek mouths at Stiles, which seems just a little unfair. He hasn’t even technically said one word yet. He’s barely even opened his mouth! He goes to give a snappy reply, but thinks better of it, and not just because Derek’s eyebrows give a hilariously menacing caterpillar scrunch. A large part of it is the way Isaac’s back shakes slightly under Derek’s hand, like he’s sobbing. 

Stiles wants to step forward and assist with the comforting, but he’s sure Isaac wouldn’t want the embarrassment of having someone else there.  
After a few long seconds have passed, he tries to mime rubbing someone’s back, and after a moment filled with a confused and then pained look, Derek seems to get it, moving his hand soothingly up and down until the boy sort of...melts into him, pressing his head into Derek’s chest like a small child.  
“Hey,” Derek says, low and gentle, and “alright?” He rests his chin softly on Isaac’s head, but his gaze, not at all angry now, is locked on Stiles, who smiles lopsidedly, gives Derek a thumbs-up, and turns around, padding back out of the kitchen.  
Well. Derek seems to have that under control. Great.  
Stiles gulps at water from his cupped hands in the bathroom, instead, and the chilled splash where it spills down his front feels nice in the heat. When he slips back beneath his sheets, his pillow feels cool against his face, and the uneasy weight has slipped away altogether. 

~~~

The second one happens like this: Stiles is sitting in the crowd, clapping dutifully at every award the stammering announcer reads out. 

The few important ones he is waiting seem to be taking forever. He keeps having to crane his neck around the jerks in the row in front, who have stupidly broad shoulders and are very irritatingly placed. Couldn't they sit up the back? There should be rules about this kind of thing. He mentions as much to Derek, who’s sitting slumped in the chair beside him, rolling his eyes.  
Erica's face, when Stiles catches a glimpse of her, is practically glowing, she's that happy. Boyd is radiating a calmer pride behind her on the stage, but his grin keeps showing through, too huge to be contained. Their names are (finally, Stiles thinks) read out, and Stiles claps so hard his hands burn, and just about cheers himself hoarse. He thinks he can see Erica blush at his whooping, and counts it as a job well done. Stiles whoops and claps again as the group hold up their certificates to the flashing of a hundred cameras. 

Afterwards there’s ‘light supper and refreshments’ in a little courtyard garden sort of a thing, with everyone taking photos squashed up to their parents and relatives. Erica is still smiling and smiling, but there's a wistful edge to Boyd's slow gaze that twists Stiles' stomach and clutches at his chest.  
Stiles gets someone to snap one of him and Derek with their arms around Erica and Boyd, and when he goes to take the camera back Derek is swinging Erica round into the air, grinning at her in a way Stiles would once have thought he wasn't capable of. She shrieks, but she’s smiling and smiling even once she’s set back on the ground. 

Derek says nothing at all, erudite as usual, just pulls Boyd in for a hug as well. Boyd rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t pull away, and Stiles thinks his eyes are a little shinier than usual. For once in his life, he keeps his mouth firmly closed, and the grip in hiss chest eases.  
Stiles snaps one more photo - of Derek with his arms around both Erica and Boyd, looking prouder than any of the parents milling around. 

That’s the one that Stiles sends to Derek, but somehow the other one ends up stuck to the fridge instead, smiling at them over dinners and early mornings and after battle scenes alike, just grinning and grinning and grinning. 

~~~

The third one starts like this: No-one can quite believe what Jackson’s just said. 

There’s a stunned sort of silence, in which Lydia’s eyes widen and her hands snap to her hips. Everyone’s standing around in the kitchen, the meeting they were having about boundaries and procedures and training interrupted, basically, by Jackson being a jerk. Surprise, Stiles thinks.  
Lydia opens her mouth, snaps it shut, puts her finger meditatively-come-threateningly over her lips as though holding herself back, and storms out, heels clacking on the floor. Even Stiles with his human ears can hear the sound of her bedroom door slamming upstairs. 

There’s another long moment of silence, in which Jackson seems to deflate a little, though he’s still sprawled obnoxiously across the counter. 

“Alright, chickadee,” Stiles says, while everyone else is still reeling. He points a finger at Jackson. “You seriously should not have said that, that is actually quite unacceptable, I hope you are regretting your choices-”  
“Oh, shut your fucking face, Stilinski.” Jackson spits just as Stiles is getting a good rant going, building up to a snappy ‘young man’ and everything. He’s quite gratified to watch Jackson being pressed into the ground, seemingly by the entire pack moving in tandem, like a...well, like a pack of angry wolves. 

“Apologise.” Derek bites out around his...whoa, around his fangs. “Apologise to Stiles.”  
“Not -” Jackson manages, and whimpers as someone presses a little harder. “Sorry! Sorry, Stiles.” He actually sounds like he means it, too. Derek picks him up practically by the scruff of his neck and throws him into the lounge-room, rather gently, Stiles thinks. Considering. 

“Stay.” Derek growls after him, and for Jackson’s sake, Stiles hopes he’s feeling obedient. For Lydia’s sake, he hopes there’ll be a bit more throwing around going on.  
“And the rest of you: good meeting. Go home. Stiles and I will deal with this.” Derek wrenches open the lounge-room door and slams it shut behind him again, and the people in the kitchen just sort of...mill around. 

“Did you not hear him? Go home.” Stiles says. “To the apartments you supposedly live in sometimes?” They mill around a little more. “Seriously. Everything will be sorted. I swear.” Stiles feels kind of nice when there’s a palpable release of tension at his words, and they all do as he says, filing past him for claps on the shoulder and pecks on the cheek as they go. He feels a little like a soccer mom, but tries not to delve into that one too deeply. He’s got manliness-preservation instincts, ok?  
And on that note, he’s off to check on Lydia, tissues in hand. Although on second thoughts...he leaves the tissues behind, swipes a block of chocolate and heats up some leftovers marked ‘DO NOT EAT’. Really, even Jackson’s handwriting is obnoxious. That’s practically a talent. 

Stiles talks Lydia into opening her door, and is talked at for a bit, and presses the leftovers at her, and agrees and curses Jackson and is soothing and gives chocolate and is supportive as he can be while talking a million miles an hour and ignoring very actively a certain amount of thumping and then whimpering coming from downstairs.  
He thinks he may actually have talked himself out. He also learns a good deal more about Lydia and Jackson’s sex life than he’s really happy about, but when she is comfortable and calm, laughter spilling out the door even when Stiles leaves, he thinks it’s probably worth it. If he still had a crush on her the size of a planet, this might be a problem, but Stiles' crush on Lydia, he'd decided, was pretty much Pluto. Not a planet-y crush at all, just a fiery, misplaced ball of misidentified emotions. He still thinks Lydia's seriously cool, and hell, so is Pluto, but he's not so sad at the way things have switched labels and orbited onward. 

He clomps back down the stairs and down the hall into the kitchen, listens for a long moment at the lounge-room door before rapping his knuckles against it.  
When no-one gets back to him with a screamed ‘No, Stiles, NOO’, or a snarl or anything, which he was half expecting, he goes inside. It’s rather anticlimactic, really, lit warm and yellowy by the lamp. 

The room is still.  
Derek’s sitting on the couch, with Jackson sprawled out along it and over Derek’s lap, head pressed into a pillow made of what looks like Derek’s jacket, his jeans pushed down around his ankles. Derek’s hand rests on Jackson’s back, fingers tracing slow circles against the stripe of skin where his shirt has ridden up, revealing a flush of pink burning its way down under the waistband of Jackson’s boxers, and again where the fabric gives way to his thighs. Stiles winces a little in sympathy, because, ouch. There’s not really any hiding what’s been going on. He thinks he can see a few fiery fingermarks. 

Stiles sinks into a chair himself, watching Jackson’s sleep-slow breathing.  
“He’s going to apologise.” Derek says, voice low and gentle.  
Stiles just raises his eyebrows.  
Derek rolls his eyes, but lets a smile show anyway.  
Stiles smiles back, and they’re having a pretty good conversation considering it has involved exactly zero words from Stiles Stilinski, undefeated speed-talking champion. 

“When he wakes up.” Derek clarifies, and sighs at himself. "Obviously." He jerks his head a little at Stiles, who tosses him one of the fleece blankets they keep slung over the back of the couches. Derek slips Jackson’s shoes off, and then slides his jeans off the end of his feet, and drapes the blanket over him. He makes another gesture, a little come-here twitch of his fingers, and Stiles shakes his head. 

Derek just nods, insistently. He backs it up with a demanding curl of his eyebrows.  
It’s Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes, but he gets up, finds himself sitting next to Derek on the couch, Jackson’s feet flung over his lap. He tucks the blanket in a little tighter around Jackson’s toes, and should feel weird doing it, but...doesn’t. Any tension left in his chest has eased again with Lydia's laughing and Jackson's easy, sleepy breathing. 

Stiles says nothing, possibly for the first time in his life. He leans up against Derek and gets an arm slung across his shoulders for his trouble.  
Derek is warm against him. They sit there for a long while, listening to their soft breaths in the quiet room. Stiles feels slow and soft, heavy resting against Derek's side, and lets his eyes slide shut against the dull glow of the lamp. 

~~~

The fourth one happens like this:  
“You’re Belle, dude. You just are. Isn’t Stiles so Belle, Allison?” Allison laughs at Scott and ruffles his hair in her Disney-princess way (because hello, if anyone’s Belle, it’s Allison), but then looks closely at Stiles. It’s almost as if she’s considering this ridiculous proposal. 

“I’m not Belle!” Stiles protests. “Lydia, Queen of everybody’s hearts, tell them I’m not Belle!” Lydia, unfortunately, just smirks.  
“You’re Belle.” she says, and Stiles groans.  
“Why?” he says, “why me?”  
“You sing, dude, all the time!” is Scott’s only answer, and Stiles can’t really argue against it.  
“You are: bookish,” Lydia chips in, counting answers on her fingers, “you’ve kind of been stolen away from your father, you’re kind to small animals and to furry beasts, and you make snow angels.” Stiles harrumphs. He perhaps should have trusted Lydia to have solid evidence to support any claim she makes. And to just be contrary on general principles. 

“Why can’t you be Belle, Lydia?” he asks, and she out-and-out laughs at him.  
“What do you think, Jackson? Am I kind to furry beasts? And small animals?” She looks quite fierce, and Jackson blushes while everyone shuffles a bit in their seats. Lydia just grins at herself, and Stiles doesn't really want to look at that whole thing any closer, especially after his and Lydia’s detailed conversation a few weeks back.  
“Fine.” he grumbles, “but shouldn’t I at least get a mysterious and attractive Beast of my own?” he waves his hands suggestively as he talks. 

At this point, naturally, Derek walks in. Scott waggles his eyebrows at Stiles across the room.  
“Derek.” Lydia says, and she is seriously not Stiles’ favourite person today. “You’ll agree: Stiles is Belle, mm?” Derek shuffles a little uncomfortably as he flops down in his chair.  
“I haven’t seen the movie.” Derek grunts, not even pretending that he hasn't heard their conversation even from where he was working outside. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything...Pixar.”  
Everyone is dead silent, until:  
“Disney, idiot.” Jackson says, sensitive as usual. “What? Beauty and the Beast is Disney. Everyone knows that. ” Everyone is glaring at him, and he jumps a little at Lydia’s hand on his arm. Stiles thinks she might have pinched him. “I mean, I think?” he finishes, and is that a blush?  
“Well,” Stiles says, clapping his hands together. “Mission: animation marathon, anyone?”  
Everyone settles back into their chairs, and Jackson doesn’t complain at all. Which, bonus. 

A few nights later, and they’re through most of the classics, with everyone watching Stiles very closely and not very subtly through Bambi’s mother’s death.  
“Oh my god,” Stiles says, and his voice is only ever so slightly choked up. “I’m not Bambi as well! I can’t be Bambi and Belle!” Scott pats his back.  
“At least you get to be Nemo, too?” he tries. “Plucky and...adventurous?”  
“Swimming in circles.” Stiles reminds him, and ignores Boyd’s coughed ‘talks everyone into circles, more like’. 

But when they get to ‘Up’, it seems most of them are tearing up. Allison’s busy comforting Isaac, and Scott, ever the softy, is curled up against...Derek. Huh.  
“They were supposed to be together forever,” Scott says, though it comes out a little muffled since he’s saying it into Derek’s shirt. Stiles smiles over at Derek, who’s patting Scott’s back gently and a little bemusedly. Scott looks like he’s on the verge of climbing right into Derek’s lap.  
Stiles would totally go over there himself, but...he’s covered in Boyd, and Jackson’s legs are kind of in his way where he’s pressed around Lydia, who’s stroking Jackson’s hair in a rare show of softness. Erica smirks at them all as she comes back into the room with a cup of tea, though even she looks suspiciously damp-eyed. Stiles makes a face at her, which even he knows is a little childish, but...he’s comfortable being himself, ok? 

Stiles has to admit, he cries a little at the end of ‘Up‘, just because...  
“The old guy’s gonna die soon, and then the annoying one will be all alone again.” Derek says gruffly, suddenly standing behind him like the creeper he is and squeezing his shoulder. Stiles nods, and sighs, and doesn’t question Derek’s new-found powers of empathy. That’s what animated movies are for, after all.  
“Yeah,” he sighs, nodding sadly. His face brightens after a moment “but also - you are so Fredrickson!”  
“I’m not - ” Derek tries, but it’s astonishing what a pile of were-pups crawling over the back of a couch and jumping on you can do to shut a guy up. “I’m not always grumpy and contrary-” he grumps, buried under a pile made up of everyone else, which shakes with combined snorts of laughter  
“Mmmm...” Stiles says. “You kind of are, but also -” he puts a hand to his chest ,“ - you are loved.” 

For the rest of the movies, the pack piles around Derek on the one couch, which, why did they bother buying three if no-one’s going to use them? Stiles shakes his head as Scott pulls him into the mess of super-heated limbs, and a few people nuzzle against him. Werewolves, man. What can you do? 

~

“Off to the cupboard with you now, chips, it’s past your bedtime.” Allison says when they've finally reached the end of ‘Beauty and the Beast’, herding Isaac and Scott , who are trying to hide the fact that they’re rubbing at their eyes, down the hallway to their bedroom. And yes, Stiles means bedroom, singular. Since Isaac had sobbed the whole thing into Derek’s chest one night after they’d had a fight, they've all been very happy together, and so no-one has done anything other than smile knowingly and dig them in the ribs a bit, though Allison as Mrs Potts adds a new, stranger dimension. Lydia and Jackson may not win the kinky cake this year after all.  
Lydia whispers something into Jackson’s ear, and he practically jogs off to their bedroom with his tail wagging, though, Lydia stalking behind. So...maybe not. 

~~~

The last one, quite poetically, starts like this: with Stiles waking up. 

He’s rolling out of bed before he’s really aware of it this time, tripping and catching himself against the doorframe, and then against the stair rail. He rubs at his eyes and yawns into the crook of his arm, feeling his way down the stairs in the dark. 

The kitchen light isn't on this time, but the flare as he flicks the switch blurs his vision again, just for a moment, and when the world settles into existence again the room is empty, the fridge grumbling to itself as Stiles stands in the doorway. His bed is calling him at the moment, and he half-wants to just turn around and go back to sleep, but his feet feel heavy against the floor, and that now-familiar feeling of discomfort is flaring in his chest. 

Something pulls him forwards, makes him sweep his keys into his pocket off the bench top and send a piece of paper fluttering to the floor as he does so. 

'Morning Stiles.' it reads, when Stiles stoops to pick it up, and he'd snort at the obnoxiousness of calling 1am 'morning', but somehow it doesn't seem funny. What is kind of humorous, though, is the way Derek's brusqueness comes out through the note, and maybe it's just Stiles, but he's reading it in Derek's almost-growl, and imagining the twists of his eyebrows which would surely accompany the words. 

'Gone running. Back later. D.' Derek has scrawled a date at the top, and the funny feeling churns in Stiles' chest. He looks a little closer, peers at the words and the date, which Derek's stuffed up - he's written the date for tomorrow, or today, given it's after midnight, but Stiles thinks that Derek's been out for a while. He kind of gets the feeling Derek's trying to pull some wool over his eyes, what with the date and the 'morning', sounding like he might have just left at Stiles' normal surfacing time of ten-ish.  
Being lied to, Stiles thinks, feels pretty shitty. He just hopes it's not evil-related, or Derek trying to kill those dreadlocked teacups on his own again (because yeah, prophetic dreaming is a thing that happens to Stiles, and so are dreadlocked teacups with sharp teeth, apparently). He scribbles a note of his own in case Derek or one of the others comes back and sticks it to the corkboard with an unnecessarily violent stab of the thumbtack. 

Stiles wanders out the door without thinking about it, wakes up enough to realise he's still in his pyjamas when the chilly breeze bites icily at his bare arms. He ducks back inside and grabs his jacket, locking up behind him with one hand while dialling Derek's cell with the other. 

Derek's Camaro is still in the drive, lurking darkly in the shadows like a reflection of its owner. So, Stiles thinks, at least Derek was telling the truth about the running. His phone rings and rings, and Stiles listens with his heart falling to his answer message. 

"Ah, Derek. Hale. Leave a message." There's a pause. "Please." 

"Fucker." Stiles says, "where are you? I'm kind of just a bit worried, so call me!" 

He clambers into his Jeep, and soon they're rattling down the highway, the road rolling out beneath them while the forest flocks close and then falls away. He's not really sure where he's driving, but in this light everything looks eerily familiar. He's trying not to think about what might have happened, and that he might not be able to find the werewolf at all.  
He's not at all sure what he's going to do, but for now he's content to just follow the strange twisting inside him, the feeling that wakes him up and pulls him close to hurting pack members, easing when they're calm and soaring when they're laughing. He doesn't want to inspect it too closely, because looking at these things tends to make them flee, but he trusts it anyway. 

The suburbs crowd around him now, row after row of houses that Stiles almost recognises, until he's turning onto his own street and pulling up inexplicably in his Dad's driveway.  
The patrol car is gone from the carport, and Stiles lets himself in without quite knowing why, because why would Derek come here, to Stiles' father's empty house? 

The click of the door closing behind him rings in the silent entranceway, along with the clatter of his keys in the fruit bowl. He pads up to his room, and opens the door with his heart pounding. The feeling curls fiercer than ever in his chest. 

Stiles reaches for the light switch, but suddenly doesn't want the harsh glare to interrupt this gentle darkness.  
He can see just fine, anyway, with the moonlight filtering in through his open window, silhouetting Derek's form where he sits on Stiles' old bed. Stiles has never been more relieved to see him before, and this feels like all the times Derek has shown up at the last minute put together, like the sudden pulse of a heartbeat under Stiles' fingers when he'd feared there would be none. 

Derek stirs in front of him, huffing out a sigh so interrupted that Stiles might even call it a... sob. A whole series of them, and if Stiles thought Isaac’s tears were heart-wrenching, well. Derek’s few silent sobs are crushing.  
But he's here, Stiles thinks, and in one piece. 

He steps forward without thinking about it, and Derek’s head snaps up, his eyes gleaming wetly in the darkness. Stiles can see shadows under his eyes, and his chest twists again. But he's here. He's here, for whatever reason, he's here. And Stiles is so pathetically relieved to have found him that he feels floppy and loose-limbed. 

Stiles takes another step forward, and Derek scowls, scrubbing a hand angrily across his face as if trying to hide. Stiles ignores him and his angry caterpillar eyebrows and sinks down onto the bed beside him, wrapping his arms around the alpha and gripping him tightly. 

"Stiles." Derek says, and his voice is even more growl-y than normal, in a hoarse, sombre way. "What are you doing?" Stiles thinks he can hear a slight crack in Derek's tone.  
"I'm hugging you, you fucking idiot." Stiles says, and feels Derek shake beneath him. 

He starts thinking about all the cuddling Derek’s been up to lately - Isaac, Erica, Boyd, Jackson, Scott, the whole pack all at once. Is there anyone Derek isn’t busy doling out hugs to?  
Stiles squeezes him a little tighter, and feels Derek freeze for one long eternity before pressing up closer against him.  
And with Derek busy being everyone’s 24/7 one-stop alpha-cuddle shop... who has there been to just pat Derek on the back or peer closely at the sad curl he gets to his face? Or who, at least, could do it without sacrificing all the untouchable-leader vibes their alpha keeps desperately trying to rock? And what's with all these questions, anyway?

"You unbelievable fucking idiot." Stiles says, "Don't you ever worry me like that again, you fucker." Derek's head sinks to Stiles' shoulder, and Stiles thinks that this is the weirdest way he's ever found of comforting someone. Or the weirdest way that works, anyhow. Trust Derek to respond to a mixture of hugging and swearing. 

Derek's nose presses into Stiles' neck, and Stiles feels shaky breaths puffed out against his skin. Stiles lets go with one hand to pull one of Derek's arms up around his back, and feels Derek follow it with the other. His hands are warm where they clutch at Stiles' shirt.  
Stiles cuddles Derek tighter, and thinks that he might have answered his own questions. Might have answered the reason he was asking in the first place. The clutching, stabbing feeling inside his chest sighs, and dissipates. 

"Come on." Stiles says, voice gentler now. He eases backwards until he's lying down on the bed, Derek curled next to him and over him and beneath him all at once, still shaking and clinging to Stiles like a little child. Stiles runs a hand through Derek's hair, buries his nose in it and breathes in Derek's scent, heady and safe even to his human senses.  
"Next time," he says, and Derek's face buries further into Stiles' chest. "You're just going to ask for this when you need it." Derek shakes his head and mumbles something into Stiles' chest.  
"Don't need it," he says, or something similar, the words muffled by being spoken into Stiles' pyjama shirt. Stiles sighs. 

"Derek," he says, injecting a little firmness into his voice. "Everyone does. And when you do, or any other time you want it, you're going to ask." Derek clutches at him tighter, and Stiles feels a reluctant nod against his chest.  
"You unbelievable fucking precious idiot." Stiles says, just for emphasis, and it comes out incurably fond. 

Derek shakes against him again, but this time it's laughter rather than sobs puffing out into Stiles' neck. He nuzzles back, and pouts into Derek's hair. "Are you laughing at me?" he says, aiming for outraged but missing by about one hundred and eighty degrees of emotion-soaked relief. Derek nods once more, squeezing Stiles tighter again.  
And really, he wouldn't want it any other way.  
No, really.  
Stiles smiles goofily into Derek's hair.  
Really really.  
~~~

**Author's Note:**

> The reference is to Jackson being spanked by Derek in a parental manner. This happens off-screen.  
> I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
